Soon the siren faded, soon our yard sank back to mist and hush. But, settled here in my RobertRobertRobert rocker, surrounded by an implied fortress that’d just ascended to some feathery Celestial City, I found I could finally tilt forward, I could breathe. With gratitude, which was my potential.

I said aloud to no one, everyone, just “So.”

I nursed my still-warm cup. I held it closer to my chest, and some stray steam touched annex chins. A strange maturing chord change fathered forth down both my arms. Then, simple as a whistled three-note song, I understood:

I was on my porch alone. But I remained in chosen company.

I was in my life.

Rite

uring the long flight toward Iowa to bury him, both of us transferring into planes of decreasing size, I had felt aware of myself sitting with posture intentionally as good as his—him, a horizontal now—below me. And I held up fine. I reread “The Wound-Dresser.” I told myself that my own mourning for Robert had been so long and gradual, there would, at the funeral, be fairly little left to do. Oh these necessary lies.

Even when his parents waved from the gate (father short in clerical garb, the mother Robert-colored but in a blue floral), even as I descended this primitive outdoor gangway (be careful going down careful), I was okay, really, glad for my recent time with these folks. It made this at least half a homecoming.

Odd how close I’d grown to the parents of many friends. At Ossorio’s, our circle had pretended we owed nothing to our hick towns pre-New York. We behaved like a stable of young centaurs—amused by the rustic dray horses who believed they’d sired and foaled us.

But now, hungry for any proof of Lost Boys, I found exceptional evidence in these older faces—their genetic address books. The parents mostly showed such kindness, an odd grace, now the worst had happened.

—Cedar Rapids Airport requires you to use the outdoor ladders. These get wheeled against the side of your cropduster. I felt troubled by this detail from early aviation; had our pilot worn goggles? Had the crew left Robert back at O’Hare?

The Gustafsons and I would now wait for Angie’s plane—San Francisco via Hawaii from Berlin. I’d reached her with the news just as she was getting dressed for her big opening at D.A.D. I hated the timing but it couldn’t be helped. For once, I tried not blaming myself. The beginning of wisdom. Nothing personal in any of this.

The German press adored her rough name and the confident supple work, so colorful, so easy to discuss thematically. The Institute was showing everything, including a fragment of a childhood wildlife mural (it was amazing, the colors from the start were hers). This show would be a big stride forward in her International reputation. It’d help her chance of getting into the MOMA lobby someday.